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Not close at all. At my latitude, this storm was a vague glow in the sky; I could see that it was there, and in this case, I could even see a little bit of the detail, but it's just at the edge of vision. The camera, however, can see far more than I can in terms of low light; I used a long exposure, and a wide, light-gathering aperture (like your eye's pupil open wide, only much wider), and turned up the sensitivity of the amplifier on camera's sensor to its maximum in order to capture what you see here.

You're welcome. WRT the view, yeah... but you have museums, fine dining, aquariums, water parks, theater, concerts, symphonies, conventions, a couple of centuries of fine architecture, the ocean, hills, caves, shopping, clubs and societies, modeling agencies, all manner of service industries and contractors, pizza delivery (and many different variations on pizza), grinder shops... I could go on for hours.

So while there are definitely a few benefits to living here, I think the envy is mostly on the other

"Stars like Sol, Sirius, Canopus, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, glowing to threaten the dark of the world. The United States will lead a coalition of the willing to blacken it!"

where Dr. Crusher was commanding the Enterprise. She used Dr. Raega's (Farengi scientist) metaphasic shield to enter a star's corona with the Borg in persuit, and then fired the phasers at the star just below the Borg ship.

she wasn't commanding the Enterprise in that episode, just the research team testing that shield thing. she commanded her own ship in the last episode (future) and the Enterprise when she was in another dimension with everyone else dissapearing around her.
more adept TNG nerds feel free to correct me.

A friend of mine is a Mason and he said it's next wednesday at 4:35pm. Unfortunately the Holy Grail will not be available as it's currently in their vaults awaiting re-release after a hiatias to drum up more interest..

I guess the Aliens from area 51 stole the thunder out of seeing the holy grail, and a dumbass in the dayton Ohio Temple drank from it when they last had it and his head melted.

3. We are developing the ability to forecast "space weather", thus leading to a new field, astrometeorology

just cuz im in my nitpick mood, the origin of the word meteorology is already astronomical. It was believed that meteors were part of earths weather system. So I think this new field should be called meteorology, and the old field should be called Geoweatherology... or Global Warming

He smiles at the camera, then tells a little jokeHe always says it's sunny if the telestrator's brokeThinks clouds are made of cotton and are blown up to the sky,But he's got a steady income as a TV weather guy

"They say I'm not qualified to be on the TVDon't know Fahrenheit from Celsius so I just say 'degrees'I just read the temperature and make up a bunch of liesand end up being right more than the guy on channel 5."

The additional bit of good news (if you're a VHF amateur radio operator, or FM or TV broadcast DXer) is that there should be interesting propagation of VHF radio signals [wikipedia.org] refracting off of the aurora [wikipedia.org], perhaps as far as 2000 km. The bad news is that the same ionization that refracts the VHF signals attenuates HF signals, so if you're an HF amateur radio operator or short-wave listener, the paths over the poles will be closed for a few days.

I guess the additional bad news if you're a VHF broadcaster (FM or over-the-air TV) is that you can expect a lot of calls from the public complaining about poor reception, as signals from far away interfere with yours.:-/

I don't know if this is related, just pointing it out in case. I listen to an AM radio station on the rare occasion that I drive to work...I drove today because it is outlandishly hot here today....that station was just crazy noises. This station is always the first one I lose when I drive out of town...guessing it is related.

3.3. We are developing the ability to forecast "space weather", thus leading to a new field, astrometeorology

We've had space weather as a branch of operational meteorology for decades. I can testify to the fact that the US Air Force has performed operational space weather observation, warning, and forecasting missions since the early 1970s.

It was never called "astrometeorology", though. Let's just say that the clever name you suggested will be your contribution to the field.

If NASA [discovery.com] didn't then Slashdot did [slashdot.org]. Another clue might be that same link in the summary along with the word 'predicted' if you bothered to read that far. I know the summary was a whopping 2 sentences and all, but really =P

You know absolutely nothing about astronomy, stop talking. It's making you look like either Glenn Beck or a Retard...

You repeated repeated yourself there. Either that, or you're being mean to retards.

In any case, since sunspots are not mentioned anywhere in the Bible it is clear that this is just some secular humanist hoax. No one can actually predict astronomical events like the aurora, which are caused by God.

How could an auroral display be caused by the sun, anyway? They happen at NIGHT! Duh.

Either that, or this is just one more on the long, long list of "things Science can do that Faith can't," along with curing d

I'd be more interested to know if anyone saw it in their area. I'm around London, Ont. I didn't see any this morning, but my buddy directly across the lake in Michigan did, and a bit further north his friends saw it as well. I'm sure one of these days, when it's not cloudy, humid, raining, snowing, or anything other than a semi-clear sky I'll see them around here. Because every time we have one, it's not really the best viewing weather.

Could something like this have the same effect on electronics as an EMP?

Imagine the chaos if all the microprocessors on the planet burned out at once. Or just in one hemisphere.

On the surface, not so much - the magnetosphere funnels those charged particles to the magnetic poles, where they interact with the atmosphere and create the stunning light shows we call auroras. That said, they can induce currents to flow, especially in long lines (think power lines) which can cause circuit breakers to trip, cutting off the grid and causing power outages.

In space, they cause lots of havoc with satellites - ranging from simple loss of communication (moving charged particles generate EM radiation, after all - same ones that cause power outages mentioned above), to complete destruction if it burns out some control circuits. So not only are the electronics rad-hard, but there are shut down protocols to temporarily turn satellites "off" to prevent damage. A dead satellite is a huge cloud of space junk waiting to happen, after all, especially if you can't deorbit it.

Of course, the magnetosphere is supposed to be weakening in time for a supposed pole reversal, in which case life will get pretty interesting.

This CME didn't result in any damage to satellites, though. Not sure if there weren't other effects (power outages, notable) caused, though.

The Solar Storm of 1859 [wikipedia.org] was one of the largest known in history and just glanced the modern Electronic Age. The significant electronic device in use at the time was the 15-year old telegraph. Lesser storms since then have brought down power grids.

The novel One Second After [onesecondafter.com] is one of those post-apocalyptic stories of a severe EMP attack. The cause, whether military or cosmic, is not dwelled on. Its just that all electric power, computers, and memories halt in an instant. In real life something in basement might survive. But the author killed off almost all technology for dramatic purposes. This includes all vehicles built after 1980 which have computing inside them. It is set in a rural town several days walk from a major city. The first result

I just couldn't go to see it after the spoof trailer that I linked to above. I saw the serious trailer afterwards in the cinema and it was just taking itself so seriously I could barely stop myself from laughing.

How can anyone think that is a documentary? I don't know. Scary thing is, I'm not surprised by that. : (

So, how much additional mass did the earth obtain? I'm guessing that most of it was hydrogen, but it would be cool to get even a ball park figure.

A few liters (at STP), a few moles, a kilogram, immeasurably small, or much more? Somebody who is more familiar with the field has to have made an estimate. Was it all energy or was mass actually transferred?